5/17/2007

More Guns, Less Crime makes the Modern Library's top 10 list for Nonfiction

The Modern Library has produced its list of the top 100 nonfiction books. The Virtue of Selfishness finished first and my book More Guns, Less Crime just made the top 10. The list has a decidedly conservative/libertarian slant. Still pretty neat, though I wouldn't rank my book above such classics as Thomas Sowell's Conflict of Visions (71) or PJ O'Rourke's Parlament of Whores (72) or Eric Hoffer's The True Believer (20) or certainly F.A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom (16) or Milton and Rose Friedman's Free to Choose (14).

Ask before you eat

One warning that I should give Americans who eat sushi in Japan and that is apparently one of the selections is raw horse. I kid you not. I had to ask about five times before I actually believed the answer that I was getting. I love sushi, but this is going too far.

Other thoughts on Japan

1) It has been 19 years since I last visited Japan, and there are a number of things that have changed. a) There are a lot fewer English advertising signs now, but the ones that you see generally seem to make more sense. When I was here before there were signs such as "I feel Coke" or "I touch Lark (cigarettes)." There are still a few things such as a drink called "body love," but this is more silly than anything else. Most English signs are something like "Great Selection" or "Hair Make," something I saw at many beauty salons. I like the packages in the grocery stores that have an English label reading "tastes great," but the rest of the package is in Japanese and I couldn't figure out what it was inside the bag, though I was tempted to buy it just to find out what tasted so "great."b) When I was here before it seemed most people smoked. I thought that I needed an air tank with me to go on the trains, and the smoke was unbelievably thick. Now I have seen one person smoking. Before the sidewalks were filled with automatic dispensors for cigarettes, but I have only come across a couple of set ups this time.c) The population seems visibly much older. I kind of expected this because of everything that I know about the birth rate here, but the ratio of older people on the trains is quite high.

2) Japan has privatized its university system, though it has left many regulations in place (such as restrictions on tuitions). The government has apparently stopped its subsidies and the universities have to make up the difference with getting donations. My host at the University of Tokyo is essentially doing consulting for major companies and turning over the consulting fee as a donation to the university. You can really tell how much he cares about the university, but it seems like are really difficult task to assume that there are enough faculty over enough years who are willing to make that type of sacrifice.

3) One hot topic among academics here is the drop in fertility. I suggested some changes in divorce laws and the property division rules that women would get on divorce. One amazing fact to me is that up until recently women did not get any of the man's retirement fund when there was a divorce. The new rule is that the fund is divided 50-50, but I explained that to the extent the man is the one who invested in market activities and the woman invested in the home, she was still being shortchanged for her investment.

4) Few apartments seem to have dishwashers and no one seems to have disposals. Dryers also seem to be relatively rare, with people hanging their clothes out to dry on their balconies. The cost to women doing these chores must be tremendous and from the comments that I have heard from people, women are the ones who are expected to do these tasks. Someone that I discussed this general issue with noted that it isn't surprising that women don't want to have many kids.

It didn't seem like a joke (I could be wrong), but one professor said he had gotten a dishwashing machine because his wife was "lazy."

5) Japanese book stores are suprisingly colorless. Their books have white covers with writing, but none of the pictures and colors found on books sold in the US. The books are also basically stuffed into every available space. The books aren't displayed nicely where you see the covers as in the US, but you only see the binding.

6) Post cards are very difficult to find. As someone who tries to send them to my friends when I go to interesting places, this has been a time consuming task with little success. strange.

7) Sake doesn't seem to produce the hangover that other alcoholic drinks do. I guess that I knew some of the differences with Sake before, but not as many as I do now. There are two types of Sake, those that are meant to be served cold and those that are meant to be served warm. The cold Sake is the high quality one, but there are many different varieties of that. The very best seem to taste very smooth -- they almost have no taste. The hot Sakes that I tried remind me of Kentucky Bourbon.

France: The best intentioned legislation can have unintended consequences

James Miller points to how easily even the best intentioned legislation can have unintended consequences. I am glad that the new President of France seems to be willing to do a lot to get that country going again, I just don't want him to get attacked for well meaning legislaiton that goes wrong.

Japanese Sake

I don't think that I have ever been much of a fan of Sake before, but I think that was because in the US I don't think that I have ever had very good Sake before. All I can say is that good Japanese Sake is amazingly smooth. A substantial amount of Sake with an absolutely awesome sushi dinner, followed by a walk through a giant (truly giant) Budist temple, was a great way to spend the evening. All I can say is that this Sake packs quite a punch. These Japanese academics have life pretty good.

A talk at Hitotsubashi University earlier today, an interesting economics and public policy faculty with lots of good question.

"S.C. Considers Allowing Guns on Campuses"

It would be nice if someone in the US contacted AP and told them that this story is not accurate. As has been detailed on this website, Utah is not the only place that allow guns on university campuses. Colorado State University is one example. I have it on good authority that the Dartmouth allows faculty to carry permitted concealed handguns.

It would be nice if the lawmakers accepted that others want to carry a permitted concealed handgun for the same reasons that the legislators do. It would also be nice if they understood how law-abiding permit holders were and they the permit holders do not represent a threat.

Ohio State Legislator who opposed the right-to-carry law changes his mind

It is like clockwork how those who feared that the concealed handgun permit holders would be the danger change their minds within a couple of years. It is simply hard to ignore how law-abiding those people are. In addition, this experience just confirms the polling data that i have seen about how being a victim of crime (or in this case an almost victim of crime) causes people to want to own a gun.

"Terror Suspect Claims Torture by Americans"

The evidence is beginning to appear overwhelming that we are unfairly treating prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. WARNING. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR YOUNG CHILDREN OR THOSE WHO ARE PARTICULARLY SENSITIVE. OK, you have been duly warned. The detainee was reportedly:

I admit that the "unscented deodorant and shampoo" is troubling, but I am really outraged that the prisoners were given "ball that would not bounce." This is truly shocking and almost unbelievable. If I hadn't read this news account myself, I would not have believed it.

Possibly these types of outrageous conditions are causing people around the world to become terrorists.

Letter in Columbus Dispatch on Multiple Victim Public Shootings

Random Impressions about Japan

1) A very common way of people committing suicides is for people to throw themselves in front of trains. I can only imagine the social costs of this form of suicide in that the trains appear to be stopped for an hour or so. It would be interesting to compare the costs of say Americans committing suicide with the cost of Japanese. It is not clear why Japanese want to commit suicide in such a was as to inconvienence so many other people, with trains delayed by an hour during the busy rush hour.

2) The only English language programming that I can pick up on the TV is when they are showing American baseball. Right now I am watching Detroit play Boston. Possibly it is being covered because a former Japanese star seems to be pitching for Boston.

3) Japanese food is actually pretty cheap. If I had as much sushi in the US as I have had during the last couple of days, I would have had to take out an extra loan on my house. Instead here I have been quite stuffed and gotten to eat the food for around 1300 yen. But the food is great.

4) Japanese yell a lot when they do sports. Whether it is soccer or what appeared to be Lacrosse with huge goals, there was a lot of yelling going on.

5) I watched some Summo wrestling on TV and all I can say is that it goes by extremely fast. A match appears to take as little as 5 seconds sometimes and I don't think I saw anything longer than 15 seconds. They do it fast and then two other contestants come on. It makes it somewhat difficult to get very involved in watching a match.

Further point

6) Japan's crows are huge and extremely large and agressive. I have been told that they are originally from Africa, but wherever these crows are from, they certainly make an impression.

So the grandfather set aside a gun for his grandchild? What is the problem with that? Is the kid firing the gun or carrying it around? Is the kid actually even touching the gun? I doubt it. Illinois is one of the few states with this type of FOID card requirement. Possibly the solution is to get rid of the FOID cards. Given the parents' obvious hostility to guns, I doubt that there is much concern. I doubt that there would be any concern anyway.

One other point. There are other laws on the books in Illinois that make it a crime for an adult to let a child under 14 have access to a gun if the gun is used improperly. It is part of their safe storage law.

Thanks to Robert Aldridge for sending this.

UPDATE: The title of the piece was fixed. Previously it was "Toddler Packing Heat."

Showing Smoking will get movie R-rating

Let me get this straight. Movies with immoral behavior are OK. Movies with dangerous behavior are OK. Movies with other addictive products are OK. At least for now, movies with alcohol are OK. Is it just because smoking is considered politically incorrect? The US is obviously becoming a much less free country.

Japanese Baseball

Stopped by and saw a Tokyo Giants baseball game tonight. All I can say is that Japanese baseball games are very loud and their fans are fanatical, indeed I have never seen such fans at a sports game in the US. These guys were looked really intense. Banging these plastic sticks together while they are standing and yelling as load as they could.